Camille Miller

I'm bias but Hunterdon County is my choice. Like you I'm from Essex County and we found value and great schools in the western part of the state. Our first move was to Somerset County but it got congested and prices rose so we moved further SouthWest. Check out the demographics and school reports yourself on http://www.justjerseyrealestate.com. You can also do a complete home search on the site and see what's available in your price range. Please let me know if you need an agent. I'm happy to help. Good luck to you,

http://www.JustJerseyRealEstate.com has all the local tax information, school reports and demographics for the area as well as all the town links, just go to the resource page. Let me know if I can help you in your search.

Sellers might not feel insulted per say, but a lowball offer might make them see the buyers as unfair. And research shows that people will often punish those who treat them unfairly, even if it is against their own best interests. A case in point is the Ultimatum Game.

The Ultimatum Game was invented by an Israeli game theorist who predicted in 1982 that people would tend to make take-it-or-leave-it offers as low as possible, and people receiving the offer would accept them as "better than nothing." The results of his experiments have proved otherwise.

The game works like this: one person is given a sum of money, say, ten dollars, and is told to offer a portion of it to another anonymous party. If the recipient of the offer refuses it, however, neither party can keep any of the money. The prediction was that the person offering the money would offer only 1 or 2 dollars, and the recipient would accept it as better than nothing. Those would be rational choices. But the average offer was 37%, with the most common amount 50%. More surprisingly, about half the recipients turned down offers that were under 30%. In other words, the recipients punished "unfair" offers, even when it was detrimental to them.

Ultimatum Game experiments have been conducted all over the world in many variations, with varying outcomes. For example, if the parties know something about each other, the average split is close to 50%.

One lesson for us is to let buyers and sellers know something about each other. A few agents still consider it a higher level of service to have the buyer's agent personally present the offer to the listing agent and the sellers. This is an excellent opportunity for the sellers to understand something about the buyers, and to see them as real people. When contact between the buyers' agent the sellers is restricted, the buyer's agent should at least submit with the offer a letter from the buyers that explains something about them.

Original writing by: Jim Luger of Continuing Ed Express, July 2009 Newsletter

Homes when priced right are still selling. While I use to say that your first offer is your best, now I'm saying your first offer will be your most insulting. The key is to make a solid counter-offer and work with the buyer prospect.

For buyers looking for a great deal...there are definitely good deals out there but remeber, not every seller is in trouble. I'd advise that you work with an agent that really knows and understands your market area, your finances and exactly what you are looking for to get the best deal you can.

Questions are asked everyday about what is happening in our local real estate market so much so that I've decide to answer questions in a Blog format so everyone could have access to the information because it's my belief that if one person has the question a whole lot of others are thinking it.

So please, take the time to ask your questions by emailing me at Camille@Justjerseyrealestate.com and and I'll take the time to answer them, as many as possible, as quickly as possible, to give you up to date information on What's Happening in Jersey Real Estate.

Oh, real time information follow me on twitter @itsjersey2me.

Camille Miller, Founder of JustJerseyRealEstate.com, became a Twitter-er yesterday after her site was "tweeted" about by a NJ Author wishing to become listed in her Shop Jersey-NJ Authors section of the site. Ms. Miller willl use the service to update followers on the latest news and answer real estate questions that come through her Ask An Expert section of the Just Jersey site. "Twitter will become a new extension to our already content rich website. It will assist people in locating things on the site and help us answer difficult questions with real time responses," comments Miller. Miller has been blogging for more than a year now with her Q&A style postings on Active Rain, with the new Twitter feed followers will now know when new postings are available. "The way of doing business in real estate is changing, but there will always be a need for experienced real estate professionals to provide wisdom, guidance, negotiation, and helpful interpretation for the vast amounts of information available to the consumer today."

Do you Twitter? If so, you may want to follow this innovative twitter-er @ItsJersey2me.